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The industrializing county of Derbyshire, with its mixture of market towns and manufacturing concerns, was supposed to have over 3,000 (or, according to one source, 3,600) freeholders, but this figure was merely notional as there had been no contests since 1768. Politically, it was dominated by the Whig magnate the 6th duke of Devonshire of Chatsworth, the lord lieutenant, whose family had held one seat continuously from 1734. Apart from the former Member, the 2nd Baron Scarsdale of Kedleston Hall, the 3rd Baron Vernon of Sudbury Hall and the Irish peer the 19th earl of Ormonde of Kilkenny Castle, the principal families were those of Edward Coke† of Longford, whose son Thomas William Coke was Member for Derby, Sir George Crewe† of Calke Abbey, whose paternal grandfather Sir Henry Harpur had represented the county in the 1760s, Edward Miller Mundy of Shipley Hall, who had first been elected in 1784, and his kinsman Francis Mundy of Markeaton Hall. But, as the reformer Thomas Oldfield observed, there were ‘many who have equal claims’.1 Devonshire, who had inherited his vast fortune and estates in the northern part of the county in 1811, maintained the long-standing compromise whereby his uncle Lord George Cavendish, a county Member since 1797 (and father of the borough Member Henry Cavendish), was returned in tandem with a representative of the mostly Tory gentry, whose properties were mainly in the south.2 The leading lights of the True Blue Club, which was effectively a county organization, although based in Derby, were Crewe, Richard Arkwright* of Sutton Hall, Sir Henry FitzHerbert of Tissington Hall and Sir Roger Gresley* of Drakelow, Staffordshire.3

There was a contest of sorts at the general election of 1820, when Dr. Peter Crompton, a former activist in the Derby Political Society of the 1780s and the defeated candidate in the borough by-election in 1796, proposed Samuel Shore of Meersbrook as a third man. Crompton, now regarded as an eccentric controversialist, denounced the Devonshire ascendancy and proposed to restore the county’s independence by forcing a poll, but Shore, a bedridden octogenarian, sent word that he was no party to this mischief. Cavendish and Mundy were elected after a token two-day contest, each of them praising the sheriff, Francis Mundy, for having dealt appropriately with Crompton.4 As the sitting Members probably shared most of their votes as splits, it is clear that no more than about 210 electors were actually polled.5 A published letter from ‘G.C.C.A.’, attributing the prevailing national distress to a lack of rigid economy, bore all the hallmarks of a campaign address, but the suspected author, Crewe, denied being its progenitor.6

In December 1820, after those of Scarsdale and Vernon had been the first names on a requisition for a county meeting to approve a loyal address to George IV, James Abercromby* of Stubbing Court, the second-ranking Whig who acted as Devonshire’s auditor and adviser, commented that ‘the sheriff is behaving well and prudently, but I am doubtful whether those foolish Tories, with Sir George Crewe at their head, will not occasion some difficulty and confusion’. Emboldened by Abercromby, who urged him to at least make his appearance with the support of the ‘popular party’, since there was a ‘party struggle for power at your expense’ in the county, Devonshire overcame his habitual reticence to attend the meeting in Derby, 8 Jan. 1821. To Crewe’s motion for an address to George IV, he successfully moved an amendment condemning the Liverpool administration’s conduct towards Queen Caroline and carried it in the face of furious opposition from the Tories.7 The national Whig leaders were amazed and delighted at the sight of Devonshire, who gloried in their approbation, standing forth prominently and securing what Lord Grey called a ‘proud victory’, especially since, as George Tierney* averred, ‘Derbyshire was the only county in England where ministers thought they were strong enough to form a meeting’.8 The Tories retaliated by drawing up their own loyal address (headed by the 5th duke of Rutland of Haddon Hall), calling for a subscription of £200,000 to unseat Cavendish and issuing vituperative recriminations, including Crewe’s remark that the meeting ‘was a disgrace to Englishmen and Christians’. Francis Mundy’s conduct as sheriff marked him out as an enemy of the True Blue Club, while the widespread extent of the continuing support for the Cavendishes was shown by the statement of Joseph Strutt of Derby, at a borough meeting that month, that the mass of independent freeholders were not amenable to the Tories and possibly ‘might send two constitutional Members instead of one’.9

Derbyshire petitions complaining of agricultural distress were presented by Edward Miller Mundy, 20 Feb., and James Ingram Lockhart, 26 Apr.; one from the county and borough for revision of the criminal laws was brought up, 3 June 1822.10 Following Mundy’s death that autumn, Francis Mundy offered and, according Sir Francis Burdett* of Foremark Hall, there were ‘three or four others mentioned’. Since Crewe declined, there was no opposition to Mundy, even though Arkwright and FitzHerbert had told him that they ‘would give him no countenance’. Mundy, who was in fact introduced by Crewe, was returned unopposed at the by-election in November 1822, thereafter proving to be a very wayward ministerialist in the Commons.11 In October 1824 it was reported that as Mundy was likely to be opposed by Crewe at the next election, the Whig voters would have to give splits to him and Cavendish, who was considered unpopular.12 Again urged on by Abercromby, who thought he should remain active, Devonshire proved a political point by braving the snow to attend the anti-slavery county meeting, 12 Jan. 1826, when he, Mundy, William Evans* of Allestree Hall and George Lamb*, a connection of Devonshire’s, were the principal speakers.13 The ensuing petition was brought up in the Lords by Devonshire, 1 Mar.14 At the general election of 1826 Cavendish and Mundy, who were returned unopposed, both promised to give their support to relaxation of the corn laws.15

Neither Cavendish, who favoured Catholic relief, nor Mundy, who voted against it, apparently supported the short-lived Canning ministry, during which Devonshire served as lord chamberlain, and both were very inactive during the following sessions. In early 1829 Mundy supported local anti-Catholic activity, including in Derby, where the True Blue Club met under the chairmanship of the late Edward Miller Mundy’s son and namesake; hostile petitions were forthcoming from such places as Ashbourne and Chesterfield.16 These were presented, 9, 27 Feb., 25 Mar., while another petition against emancipation, from the clergy of the archdeaconry of Derby, was brought up in the Commons, 9 Feb., and in the Lords, 27 Mar.17 Cavendish’s grandson William Cavendish, whom Devonshire had earmarked as a future Member for the county, was elected for Cambridge University later that year. Responding to the misgivings of Devonshire, who wanted the most senior member of the family to hold the county seat, Lamb urged him to see reason, 25 June:

Derbyshire, after all, is only a seat in Parliament, though certainly the representation of a county is, I admit, an honourable appendage to a noble family there resident, but this may be maintained at too high a price if it is to be supposed that there must always be Cavendishes specially presented and prepared for the purpose. If the time were to come when no Cavendish should represent it, I could contemplate that ... without disgust, and I am sure it would be better than that the pigheaded county is always to consider itself entitled to the flower of the family ... If the representation is conferred handsomely and willingly it ought to be accepted and cultivated; if not, it should be tipped into the Trent without a sigh.18

The leading Tory justices of the peace met in December 1829 to draw up a memorial complaining of the prevailing agricultural distress, which was forwarded to the duke of Wellington, the prime minister, by Edward Sacheverell Chandos Pole of Radborne, 1 Feb. 1830.19 A magistrates’ petition for alteration of the game laws was presented to the Commons (by Mundy), 11 Feb., and to the Lords, 15 Feb.20 At the general election that summer, Lord George Cavendish, proposed by Sir Robert Wilmot of Chaddesden, and Mundy, nominated by Crewe, gave assurances of their opposition to colonial slavery at the demand of the Rev. Robert Simpson, and were returned unopposed.21 The calls made by Crewe and Gresley for sweeping economies and parliamentary reforms prompted Devonshire, who noted in his diary that ‘it’s like a Whig county now’, to tell his sister Lady Carlisle that the ‘Tory squires are all become liberals’. Commenting on the July Revolution in France and the continued activity of the True Blue Club, Abercromby added that ‘the Tories here will be ready enough to play the Jacobin part to beat the duke, but their difficulty will be to get the people to join them’.22 In late 1830 there were outbreaks of ‘Swing’ rioting and unrest, which necessitated the formation of a new yeomanry troop, and incidents of distress continued into the new year.23

Joseph’s nephew Edward Strutt, Member for Derby, informed his sister Frances, 9 Mar. 1831, that Francis Mundy was undecided on the Grey ministry’s reform bill and that Strutt had written to William Jeffrey Lockett, Devonshire’s agent, ‘for the purpose of giving him a hint that it will be desirable to assist Mr. M. in making up his mind’.24 Godfrey Meynell of Meynell Langley explained to FitzHerbert, 12 Mar., that he, like Philip Gell† of Hopton Hall and Pole, had signed Crewe and Sir Robert’s son Henry Sacheverel Wilmot’s requisition to the sheriff because the members of the True Blue Club

thought that we should get the start in our requisition, as a meeting would be most certainly called by the other party, and that many who were now desirous of reform would in the event of a county election incline to a county Member who had given his sanction to the reform question.25

The reappointed lord chamberlain Devonshire, who was said by Strutt to be ‘delighted by the state of affairs in Derbyshire’, attended the county meeting, 22 Mar., when he joined the Ultra requisitionists, notably Crewe, in supporting the reform bill.26 His own speech, in which he declared himself ready to abandon his pocket borough of Knaresborough in order to preserve the true aristocracy’s justifiable electoral influence, was praised by Abercromby.27 The ensuing reform petition was brought up in the Lords by Devonshire, 25 Mar.28 A gathering in Chesterfield, 19 Apr., agreed a petition calling for that town to be given two seats, which was presented, 25 June 1831.29

In the spring of 1831 Lockett advised Devonshire, with a certain amount of apprehension, since the inevitable collapse of the compromise would leave the Cavendishes open to the charge of dictation, that Mundy ‘will certainly be opposed and rejected and from what I can see already it will not be an easy matter to prevent the Whigs from setting up a second candidate’. He also assured the duke that nine tenths of the freeholders favoured reform.30 Mundy’s vote for Gascoyne’s wrecking amendment, which precipitated a dissolution, 19 Apr., rendered him unelectable, and he quickly retired, to the regret of the ‘great influential landed interest’.31 Sir William Boothby of Ashbourne Hall reported to FitzHerbert, whom he thought was a possible candidate, that Arkwright and Gresley were both ready to stand as anti-reformers. Crewe, who felt great reluctance to offer at so unsettled a time and in such poor health, was in any case opposed by FitzHerbert (in person) and Scarsdale (by letter) at a meeting of the ‘Blue interest’ at Chaddesden, 25 Apr., on the ground that he had taken an active part at the recent reform meeting.32 This Tory gathering broke up without any result, but Arkwright, although mentioned by more than one commentator, was soon out of the race, since his father had no desire for him to stand on the present occasion, while Gresley, perhaps less popular, sought election elsewhere.33 At the same time, to ward off the threat of Thomas Gisborne of Horwich Hall, the advanced Whig Member for Stafford, entering the fray, Devonshire dispatched his kinsman Lord Waterpark of Doveridge Hall, who sat on his interest for Knaresborough, to invite a suitable ally to stand. The Whig George John Venables Vernon wrote to his father, who had succeeded as 4th Baron Vernon in 1829, on 24 Apr. 1831:

Today I was sitting in my room when Waterpark was announced. As soon as he had shut the door he said, ‘George, we want you to go down to Derbyshire. We hear that Gisborne is going to stand and we don’t like him. He is not a reputable person, and in case Mundy resigns and no Tory (who will support the bill) should offer himself, we must have you’. I said a contest for such a short Parliament is a very serious thing and I should be loath to put my father to the expense of a contested election.

He was persuaded by Waterpark that a poll was unlikely and made clear to his father that he had no money, but he accepted the offer and believed that, even if he withdrew, he would at least be establishing an interest for another opportunity. Despite these assurances, Cavendish’s campaign was kept separate from the new candidate’s and Devonshire later had to mollify Lord Vernon, who thought his son would be a fitting representative, by explaining that ‘my rule of not interfering in the choice of the second Member for the county prevented my acting as I would have wished’.34 As Joseph Strutt, the energetic chairman of his committee, and Lockett foresaw, Venables Vernon proved a popular choice and no challenge emerged from among the Tories. Nevertheless, with fears of a contest continuing, some 4,000 handbills were circulated in favour of Venables Vernon, who addressed the freeholders as a staunch reformer and an opponent of the compromise which had long stultified county politics. Cavendish and Venables Vernon, who was introduced by Gisborne after Burdett had been held up at Leicester, were duly returned unopposed as supporters of the reform bill in early May 1831.35

One newspaper subsequently derided Venables Vernon’s naive boast of independence, since he had clearly been returned under the Devonshire dispensation. The reluctance of his election committee to meet all his expenses, though they had money in hand to cover the cost, and not least their attempt at dictation over his responsibilities as county Member, was indicative of the Strutts’ ambition to control the second seat in tandem with Devonshire. The disingenuousness of the Whigs was soon apparent and Venables Vernon confided to his father that

I am sure that there is some underhand play about my election which I cannot fathom. Everyone seems to be of the opinion that the Tories are organizing a strenuous opposition for the next time, and ... I never will consent to be made the tool of a faction ... Crewe ... gave me some hints which have set me thinking and I have seen at other times various things which lead me to suppose that either the Strutt party and those at Derby wish to make the respectability of my family’s character and ‘my pleasing manners’ a cloak for their own purposes (in short that I am to be the puppet of which they are to move the strings) or there is some secret understanding with the duke of Devonshire.36

In June 1831 Crewe, Gisborne and Gresley all issued addresses promising to offer at the next opportunity, while it was reported that Cavendish and Waterpark would also be in the running, and the following month an Association for Promoting the Purity of Elections was established in Buxton.37 Edward Miller Mundy reproached FitzHerbert for his continued hostility towards Crewe, 19 June:

Now I need not point out to you the importance of unanimity in the main object we have in view, of ousting the radical faction from the commanding position they were enabled to carry, and take up (as they hope, for good) which of right, as I may say, belongs to the Tories in the county, and that they achieved through the dissensions of our party.

Meynell, who lamented that his friends were divided into what he called the ‘Tory radical reformers’ and the consistent opponents of the reform bill, favoured Gresley, but noted that Arkwright’s candidacy would force him out of the race.38 Reacting to hostile electioneering, in August 1831 Venables Vernon denied rumours that he would be standing down.39

Devonshire had been content to persevere with his increasingly inactive uncle, but was irritated to learn that, without consulting him, Grey had given Lord George Cavendish one of the coronation peerages in September 1831. Although Abercromby believed that Waterpark, rather than Henry or Charles Cavendish*, would be a better long-term prospect for Derbyshire, which Ralph Sneyd termed ‘Devonshire’s rotten borough’, the duke was pleased to bring forward Lord Cavendish (as Lord George’s heir William was now styled), but not without voicing bitter complaints that his grandfather’s age meant that Cavendish’s occupation of the county seat would be curtailed.40 As Lockett predicted, the Tories made no attempt to dislodge Devonshire’s nominee, and, apart from being away from his wife for a protracted period of canvassing, Lord Cavendish was given an easy ride, declining to follow Venables Vernon’s practice of speechifying in the villages. He was coached for his reform speech on the hustings, 22 Sept., when he was returned unopposed. His name headed the requisition for another county meeting, at which, on 1 Oct., he, Sir Charles Henry Colvile of Duffield Hall, Evans, Venables Vernon, Edward Strutt, Gisborne and Crewe were the main speakers for the reform bill.41 The ensuing petition was presented and endorsed by Devonshire in the Lords, 4 Oct.42 The riots that broke out in Derby on the reform bill’s defeat in the Lords a few days later had implications for the county, with Crewe expecting an attack on Calke and Robert Wilmot Horton* abandoning Osmaston for the duration. The yeomanry and militia joined the military in restoring order, but Colvile, the sheriff, expressed the continuing fears of many when he wrote to Lamb’s brother Lord Melbourne, the home secretary, on 14 Oct. 1831 that ‘till a reform bill has passed we shall be living over a mine which may at any moment explode’.43

The proposed north-south division of the county into two two Member constituencies preoccupied sympathizers of both parties in exhaustive drawing room electioneering from the summer of 1831. Devonshire, keen to return a second member of the family, reserved a safe seat in the North for Lord Cavendish, leaving Waterpark to sit for the South. However, this plan required the support of Lord Vernon, whose son, after much wavering, eventually decided to offer independently for the Southern division, where the Whigs were vulnerable because of the enfranchisement (by the Chandos amendment) of the Tory £50 tenants-at-will, even though this would anger Devonshire by scuppering Waterpark’s chances there and letting Gisborne take the second seat in the North.44 The Whigs believed that the Tories would settle for one seat in Derbyshire South and it was assumed that this would go to Crewe, but his withdrawal in February 1832, after which he agreed to support Venables Vernon, gave Gresley the chance to unite the anti-reformers in his favour, as Meynell hoped.45 The passage of the reform bill in August, shortly before the dissolution, was marked by William Pole Thornton of Stanton Hall by the erection of a square gritstone tower inscribed ‘Lord Grey 1832’.46 In the North, where there were 4,370 registered electors, Devonshire, who wanted ‘any liberal supporter of the government’ to unite with his cousin, was gratified by the success of Lord Cavendish and Gisborne against the Conservative Sir George Sitwell of Renishaw at the general election in December 1832. In the South, where there were 5,541 registered electors, Venables Vernon and Waterpark, who were respectively described by Crewe as ‘rather a radical’ and ‘an honest man, but a strong Whig’, defeated Gresley, ‘a violent Ultra Tory’, in another contest.47 The dominance of Chatsworth continued to be an issue, and Waterpark was forced to make the best of it in commenting on how formerly ‘one Member was generally nominated by the duke of Devonshire and one by the Tories. Then came the farce of a public election. This dictation happily was put an end to’. Although the Cavendishes continued to hold one seat for a division of the North until 1908, the clean sweep of Liberals in the county was ended when the Conservatives Crewe and Gresley defeated the sitting Members for Derbyshire South in 1835.48